1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for turning up and down seats for a telescopic seating system and more particularly to an apparatus for turning up folded spectators' seats to the upright standing posture before using the telescopic seating system and turning down them to the horizontally laid posture after completion of using of the same.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In recent years a telescopic seating system including a plurality of movable platforms arranged in tiers is increasingly employed for a building such as gymnasium or the like in order to utilize the floor space more effictively by fully storing all the movable platforms in a cavity formed on the one side wall structure of the building when the system is not in use. The movable platforms in the telescopic seating system are arranged in the form of a so-called doll tier stand such that the foremost movable platform is located at the lowermost position and the rearmost movable platform is located at the highest position when the system is in use while all the movable platforms assume their extended position. They are operatively connected to one another and they can assume the extended position in the doll tier stand-shaped condifuration by starting forward movement with the lowermost movable platform. On the other hand, when operation of the system is completed, they are stored in the cavity of the building without any projection from the wall surface by starting rearward movement with the lowermost movable platform.
In the conventional telescopic seating system all seats are manually turned up one by one by when the system is in use and thereby the movable platforms assume their extended position and after completion of operation of the system they are manually turned down one by one with the aid of personnels in the building before the movable platforms are stored.
Accordingly, a large number of man-hours are required for turning up and down seats, resulting in the telescopic seating system being operated at an increased cost. This means that a building such as gymnasium or the like cannot be used economically.
To obviate the foregoing problem there was proposed an improved telescopic seating system as dislosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,155,202. This improved telescopic seating system is constructed such that all components constituting a seat are automatically folded and unfolded without any necessity for manual handling performed by personnels in the building. However, it has been pointed out that the improved telescopic seating system has drawbacks that it is comlicated in structure and therefore it can be installed at an expansive cost.